MLB.com's Carrie Muskat has been covering Major League Baseball since 1981 and is the author of "Banks to Sandberg to Grace: Five Decades of Love and Frustration with the Cubs." You can follow her on Twitter @CarrieMuskat. Here, she blogs about the Cubs.

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Geovany Soto was back in Cubs camp on Thursday after Team Puerto Rico was eliminated in the World Baseball Classic.

“It was a great experience to go home and play in front of the home crowd,” said Soto, who played the first round in San Juan, Puerto Rico. “It was pretty special to be on the same field with all those guys.”

And Soto isn’t just including catchers Yadier Molina and Ivan Rodriguez in that group but also Bernie Williams and Carlos Delgado and Carlos Beltran.

“We played well,” Soto said. “The last game, the last inning, we lost it [vs. Team USA] but overall I thought we had a good series and represented our country well.”

It was a little strange for Soto to have to face Team USA starter and Cubs teammate Ted Lilly Tuesday night.

“It was kind of weird,” Soto said. “He came at me with a lot of new stuff.”

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